What is a musician’s response to the condition of the world? Do musicians have an obligation and an opportunity to serve the needs of the world with their musicianship?
At a time of crisis for the classical music profession, with a changing commercial landscape, a shrinking audience base, and a contraction in the number of professional orchestras, how does a young musician construct a career today? Are we looking at a dying art form or a moment of reinvigoration?
In this course we will develop a response to these questions, and we will explore the notion that the classical musician, the artist, is an important public figure with a critical role to play in society.
The course will include inquiry into a set of ideas in philosophy of aesthetics; a discussion about freedom, civil society, and ways that art can play a role in readying people for democracy; discussion on philosophy of education as it relates to the question of positive social change; and an exploration of musical and artistic initiatives that have been particularly focused on a positive social impact.
Guiding questions for this course inquiry will include:
- How can classical music effect social change?
- How has music made positive change in communities around the globe?
- What can the field of classical music learn from other movements for social change?
- How have educators and philosophers thought about the arts and their connection to daily contemporary life?
Each class will explore one critical question through lectures, discussions, interviews, or documentaries.

Taught By

Sebastian Ruth

Transcript

In this course, we're going to be posing and addressing a set of questions about the role of the arts particularly through the lens of classical music in contemporary society. A familiar refrain in classical music is that it's a dying art form, that audiences in the United States are aging, that there aren't younger ones replacing them. The funding in public schools over the past 30 or 40 years have left young people without any formal exposure, and no access point, and that the art is connected more to its own traditions than to issues of the day. Many think the art form will soon meet its demise. I don't tend to agree with the doomsday scenario, but I do think there's an important issue we need to address which is a reinvigoration of the notion that the classical musician, the artist is an important public figure with a critical role to play in society. And that a thriving free society depends on artists to serve this important role. We'll delve into three types of inquiry over the next several classes. The first, a philosophy of aesthetics or thinking about the potential of art and the power of art to have an impact in our lives. And how our experiences with the arts can be both personally transformative and transformative for our society. The second, a philosophy of civil society. What do we mean when thinking about a future for a thriving community and indeed a future for our democracy? What are the issues in contemporary life that come from a diverse society not functioning from people not coexisting with respect? And how can we live in a society in which all people have the freedom to think, to pursue their goals, to express aspirations? And then in what ways can the arts contribute to a new conception of our public sphere, to our public square and the ways people come to live in pluralistic tolerant and vibrant communities? We'll then consider various ideas of how art functions within a democracy, including an exploration of artists from the past 100 years who devoted themselves to public issues of their day. And last, what does it mean to serve as artists? How can we conceive of every concert, every design, every painting, every dance as answering the question, "how can this serve the world?" Is it about serving a need to heal from traumatic experience as did The Cellist from Sarajevo, playing devotedly for 22 days to commemorate the victims of sniper attacks on that city? Or serving a need for young people of color growing up oppressed by poverty and unequal opportunity to have a voice? The need for dialogue for instance between warring peoples with a need to save Jews from the Holocaust, as with the Polish violinist Hooperman? Or the need to express solidarity against fascism in the case of cellist Pablo Casals. Alternatively, there's a way in which the artistic dimension provides service by being decidedly not about any particular political or social cause. That the work of the artist in animating a facet of our lives is that it provides an alternative to the ceaseless chaos of the world. So in either case, our overarching question will be, "What are the needs of the day and how as artists can we serve the world in its constantly evolving form?". Before diving into this material though, I'll just take a moment to introduce myself and give a context for why this course is personally relevant. My career so far has been about applying a set of concepts to action, attempting to interpret theories of art and education in an ongoing musical practice. A driving question for me has been how can I live in this world as a musician not assuming that we're embracing the institutions surrounding music, but rather reconsider how musicians can make their lives in the world and what their impact can be. At Community MusicWorks, the organization I founded in 1997, we work in a variety of specific programs; performing music, educating young people, creating a sense of community all under the umbrella of a musical career that allows musicians to create positive change in our communities. We'll return to a deeper examination of Community MusicWorks and organizations with similar missions later in the class. At Yale University School of Music, I've been teaching courses that examine with students the ways they may incorporate into their careers, ideas informed by these philosophies. So in many ways, this inquiry and the course is examining the same questions that have driven me in my career, and I'm looking forward to exploring these ideas together.

Explore our Catalog

Join for free and get personalized recommendations, updates and offers.